Zion Another Pretty Place

We are on pretty place overload at this point. We arrived at Zion National Park on Saturday just after noon after travelling just a short distance from Bryce Canyon. We had originally wanted to go through Cedar Breaks National Monument but there was a music festival in The Zion area and we had to make our way to the RV park for “first come first served” space.

We were up before light and took the first shuttle from town “the Express” that picked us up from literally in front of the RV park at 6:40 and drove us up through Zion to the trailhead for our chosen hike “The Narrows” which is a riverwalk. We were a little under prepared for the amount of river we were walking in – the depth I mean. We balked about 1.5 miles in when we would have to wade chest high for me – neck high for Pam and made our way back to the shuttle stop for a short ride to our second choice hike “Angels Landing.”

Remember back to the Grand Staircase post when I talked about driving across a hogsback and that it was scary. OK I was a whimp then. This hike had a hogsback that you had to hike across and the a bunch of chain guardrail switchbacks up a ridge to a thin mesa “Angels’ Landing.”

 

The hike was not physically difficult at 5.2 miles round trip and a 1440 ft elevation gain, but the mental part and the waiting for up climbing hikers on the way down made it harder than it had to be. There are some great pictures of both hikes and here is a sampling. We will do a picture post the next time we have a good WIFI connection.

We headed to the North rim of The Grand Canyon today and stopped at Pip Springs National Monument. Tomorrow we see Vermilion Cliffs national Monument and Wupatki National Monument and end up at the South Rim of The Grand Canyon.

More soon….